What’s new at hospital after Carolinas deal?

Matthew Tessnear

Friday

Sep 20, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 20, 2013 at 5:27 PM

It was six months ago that local leaders announced Cleveland County would see new health care options as part of a $100 million deal to fully integrate county facilities into one of the nation’s largest health systems.

It was six months ago that local leaders announced Cleveland County would see new health care options as part of a $100 million deal to fully integrate county facilities into one of the nation’s largest health systems.

The operators of Charlotte-based Carolinas HealthCare System are paying Cleveland County to take over the property and operations of the Cleveland County HealthCare System.

The deal was announced March 7. Among the benefits proposed at the time: a local Levine Children’s Hospital presence, expanded oncology services and a new health department building.

As The Star recently reported, plans for the new health department facility are progressing. Currently, building completion is expected in about two years behind the current Department of Social Services facility on North Post Road in Shelby.

When will county residents begin to see changes with other facilities and services?

The Star recently addressed those questions and others in an interview with Dotty Leatherwood, vice president of communications for Cleveland County HealthCare System.

When will we see physical changes with hospital facilities?

“What you’re going to see first is our newest project, a building that will be built as a medical office that will allow us to relocate two existing physician practices into new space. One of the issues here in the county is we haven’t had the doctor office space. We’ve been recruiting much-needed doctors. The practices are busier. The new building in Kings Mountain will look exactly like the urgent care building in Shelby. It’s also going to allow for the expansion of additional facilities or services. To begin with, it won’t be urgent care. We might have physicians in there with extended hours. It will give us the option if we decide it’s needed because of the way the facility will be designed.”

The building is set for 2202 Carolinas Place, near Ingles in Kings Mountain.

What other projects will we see?

“We are right now working on developing our strategic plan that would start in 2014 and run through 2019. Out of that is going to come decisions on some of our existing services. Some of that will develop as we grow closer to services through Carolinas, such as with cancer care through Levine. Will we need a new facility? As we define the rest of those opportunities in relation to Carolinas, we’ll know exactly what will happen.”

What new services are available since the March announcement?

“Since we fully integrated, we have started a pediatric hospitalist program with Cleveland Regional. We began that several weeks ago, and it links us to Levine Children’s Hospital. We have hospitalists that cover the inpatient side 24/7. Those three hospitalists will manage the care of children in the hospital. They will work hand in hand with the children’s clinic in Cleveland County to take care of those children who can stay here, won’t have to go to Charlotte for a higher level of care and then have a seamless handoff back to the primary care doctor. Clearly, it will mean expanded services from what we’ve had in the past. It’s about having services that work for the families who want to stay close to home.”

Have jobs been eliminated in the transition?

“At this point in time, Carolinas is very pleased we have resources we have here to take care of our patients. We are not anticipating any jobs eliminated. We do anticipate there will be jobs new to us or reconfigured based on resources. One of the examples may be if Carolinas has a corporate health coach who works with industries. We don’t have that kind of position. We will expand that program here to make sure we have someone here working with them. It’s more of making efficiencies of how we mirror some of the services we have and how those services relate to what we have here. No, we have not eliminated jobs at this point. We are reconfiguring jobs to relate to services Carolinas may have. We are not anticipating anything other than just making business sense out of how many patients we have in the house, how many outpatients we have, what services patients need that we need to address. It depends on the ebb and flow of patients and the number of patients we see. Because we come together with Carolinas does not mean jobs are in jeopardy.”

What other new services may be coming?

“There are some services that have been identified that we would love to offer here that you would currently have to go to a metropolitan area for. There are new technological things that are happening in this relationship with Carolinas. For instance, electronic (intensive care unit) where a patient here might get monitored in Charlotte in their ICU. We know some of those technology efforts are beginning across Carolinas HealthCare System. We’ve begun something on that in our cancer center with a genetic counselor in Charlotte. The new services I’m seeing now for us are a connectivity to the services available through Charlotte. There are these operational changes afoot that are starting to open up doors and windows to care we’ve not had before. A lot of these services are more evidence of how important it is to be affiliated with the second largest health care system in the country and how their expertise will help us take care of our patients with the same quality and services they have.”

How are health care changes impacting the local system?

“The future of health care is in tremendous change. One of the things Carolinas has in its strategic roadmap is ‘transforming health care delivery.’ That’s some of the words you’re going to hear coming out of our strategic plan. That’s from the way health care is going to be paid for by the payers and how the patients with no insurance are going to need care like never before.”

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